Discussion journal of the Mössbauer Community

["Michael Reissner" <reissner AT ifp.tuwien.ac.at>]

Dear Frans,

 

I am sorry, but I cannot confirm that I understand your decision to cancel
the symposion. A cancellation 1 year in advance might be ok, but not 10
weeks before the start. For you the cancellation might be the easiest way,
but you forget that people have paid a lot of money in advance, which they
will not get back. E.g. I have paid the flight for me and my wife, who I
wanted to take with me, some months ago. I cannot cancel this flight. I also
booked the hotel for us. Hopefully we can cancel this. As this would have
been my first time in South Africa, I have booked a pre-conference tour for
us, which I also cannot cancel without loosing a lot of money. I am sure
that I am not the only one who has such problems.

 

I do not know what you have expected. In my opinion I have expected in best
case 60 participants. What about the South African Mössbauer community? Are
they not involved or interested in this conference?

 

In principle such small conferences are much easier and cheaper than a
conference with 200 people. A small lecture hall at the university or even a
seminar room at the institute is enough. Coffee can be prepared and served
by students or secretary. This all is usually for nothing. By the way ISIAME
at Budapest was organized very well in that way. I never understood, why
organization of conference are nowadays always given to some agencies and
are hold in hotels, where you have to pay a lot for the infrastructure. 

 

You wonder that you have only 11 registrations up to now, but I have to
remind you that the deadline even for the early bird registration is July
1st.  You had a long list of invited talks. I suppose that everyone has
confirmed to come. A cancellation of 2 is not large number.

 

I am not astonished that you could not find sponsors for this small meeting.
I only wonder that you seem to have calculated with sponsorship money. Such
money should never be part of the budget calculation. If it comes, it should
be used to support people to come to the conference.

 

In 2009 I have organized ICAME. We expected , due to preregistration 400
participants. Due to the economical crisis 2008, all sponsors and a lot of
colleagues cancelled their participation. At the end we had ca. 250 people.
Nevertheless we could run the conference, because with some reductions and
because in my budget I have only assumed 150 full paying participants. More
serious was ICAME 2011 in Japan, because after Fukushima nobody wanted to
come. For the organizers it was very serious, but they never thought on
cancellation of the conference.

 

It is also a very bad sign for future conferences. If one cannot trust, that
the organizer will do everything that the conference can take place, many
will be very cautious to plan a partizipation, even when invited.

 

I understand that you are disappointed about “no interest”. But there are
some people who were interested, who are now alienated. I would have
expected that you cancel your contract and look on really cheap solution,
eg. at the university, which can be covered by the registration fee.

 

Only to mention, there was a few weeks ago msms conference with only 30
participants. But people say it was very good program and interesting
discussions.

 

I hope this is not the end of the series of ISIAME conferences.

 

Best regards

 

Michael

 

Asoc.Prof.Dr.Michael Reissner

TU Wien 

Institute of Solid State Physics

Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10

1040         Wien

AUSTRIA

 

Phon: +43 1 58801 13772

FAX: +43 1 58801 9 13772

Email: 
reissner AT tuwien.ac.at

 

 

 

 

Von: Frans Waanders 
[mailto:Frans.Waanders AT nwu.ac.za]
 
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Juni 2016 20:58
An: 
raquel AT ap22ude.co.za;
 
berryfjz AT bham.ac.uk;
 
kuzmann AT caesar.elte.hu;
edson AT cce.ufes.br;
 
haraldur.p.gunnlaugsson AT cern.ch;
 
sunhui AT dicp.ac.cn;
taozhang AT dicp.ac.cn;
 
wangjh AT dicp.ac.cn;
 
lazar.karoly AT energia.mta.hu;
Stanislaw.Dubiel AT fis.agh.edu.pl;
 
aderbal47 AT gmail.com;
stevensjohng AT gmail.com;
 
haflidi AT hi.is;
 
robi AT ifd.uni.wroc.pl;
reissner AT ifp.tuwien.ac.at;
 
vpopov AT imp.uran.ru;
 
mix AT lists.kfki.hu;
israel.felner AT mail.huji.ac.il;
 
gdzhbj AT mail.iggcas.ac.cn;
 
mosslab.kz AT mail.ru;
yoshida AT ms.sist.ac.jp;
 
lttt AT physics.by;
 
kbr AT saao.ac.za;
Lodya.Lodya AT sasol.com;
 
S.D.Forder AT shu.ac.uk;
 
kubuki AT tmu.ac.jp;
magnet AT uestc.edu.cn;
 
amulaba AT uj.ac.za;
 
klingel AT uni-mainz.de;
ksenofon AT uni-mainz.de;
 
massimo.carbucicchio AT unipr.it;
jean-marc.greneche AT univ-lemans.fr;
 
jumas AT univ-montp2.fr;
lippens AT univ-montp2.fr;
 
jakub.navarik AT upol.cz;
 
libor.machala AT upol.cz;
nagy.denes AT wigner.mta.hu;
 
Deena.Naidoo AT wits.ac.za;
 
Gerrard.Peter AT wits.ac.za;
Hilary.Masenda AT wits.ac.za
Betreff: ISIAME2016

 

Dear all

It is with regret that I have to cancel the upcoming ISIAME2016 symposium
that was to be held in the Lagoon beach Hotel Cape Town

 

The main reason to me is the lack of interest;

We have at the deadline for abstracts (today) only received 27 abstracts of
which 7 are to be presented as posters. I have extended the deadline for
abstracts with a month and only a few extra abstracts were submitted, mainly
in the last 2 days.  Some of the Invited speakers have not yet sent any
abstract and others have sent more than one but due to financial constraints
only one person can come and 2 Invited speakers have canceled their
contributions due to legitimate reasons. I used the mix email as well as
some 180 names I had on the lists of persons that attended ISIAME in the
past of which only a handful responded and I am trying to answers each
person that has sent an email regarding ISIAME2016

At this stage we only have 11 paid registered persons for the conference.

 

The next problem is funding:

Some people suggested that the conference venue is very expensive but the
request was made  in China that we should hold it in Cape Town and both
Raquel and myself looked for the cheapest option and clearly from the
registration fee it is not that expensive.  For the Pittsburgh Coal
Conference (to be held in August 2016 in Cape Town) the registration fee is
$800 and we have over 200 participants already from all over the world.  We
wanted more than 300 for this conference but clearly the economic atmosphere
must play a role.

 

Sponsorship:

A successfull conference or symposium is based on sound sponsorship.  I have
obtained sponsorship from my own university (euro800) and from Sasol the
same amount and I used some euro3000 from my own research funding and did
not receive any sponsorship from overseas or Moessbauer industrial persons.
I paid the initial deposit with this money and today was the deadline of
paying the next deposit or we will incur fines. We spoke with the people
from the venue and they were prepared to not charge us a fine for
cancellation and even suggested we reduce the amount of delegates to 40
without additional costs and cheaper rates - thanks to all the efforts by
Raquel. 

 

I had many discussions with Raquel who assisted me on the whole organization
of the symposium and it is her experience and my believe that with 11
registered delegates to date we will not have even have 40 people in the
next month or so to have the symposium going further - let alone in the next
day!

 

I am thus very sorry for people who have already payed or booked flights but
the registration fees will be paid back as soon as possible

 

I am very sad to have made this announcement but I am not prepared or able
to carry any extra costs and I trust that everybody will understand my
reasoning and final decission

Frans

 


Prof Frans Waanders Pr Ing. Pr Sci. Nat.
Professor en Direkteur
Skool vir Chemiese en Mineraalingenieurswese

NWU

Tel: (018) 299 1994

Faks: (018) 299 1535
 <http://www.nwu.ac.za/> www.nwu.ac.za

 

Vrywaring:

 <http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html>
http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html



 

Prof Frans Waanders Pr Eng. Pr Sci. Nat

Professor and Director
School of Chemical and Minerals Engineering
NWU

Tel: (018) 299 1994

Fax: (018) 299 1535
 <http://www.nwu.ac.za/> www.nwu.ac.za

 

Disclaimer:  <http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.htmll>
http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

 

Vrywaringsklousule / Disclaimer:
<http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html%20>
http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

Attachment: image001.png
Description: PNG image